NOLLYWOOD'S HEARTBREAK KID

Title: Up, close and personal with Nollywood’s heartbreak kid

Published by: Sunday Nation

Written by: Njeri Kihang'ah

Picture credit: Stephen Mudiari 

Date: June 4 2011

Desmond Elliot captures your attention effortlessly. When he walked into Nation Centre for an interview, most of the people seemed awestruck by the tall handsome man.

The women could barely hide their excitement, with some desperately stretching out their hands to shake his. And the few who got to wait for the lift in his company offered rushed adoration of the Nigerian man.

Wherever he went, there were gushes of admiration for the man known for his roles in Nollywood films such as Men Who Cheat, Yahoo Millionaire and Atlanta.

For his roles in these and many other movies, Desmond has left women all over the continent almost breathless.

Then again, his often choice depictions of a lover boy or a smart professional on many of those “Afrosinema” films that flood our daytime television programming only make him more appealing.

At Nation Centre, heads turned wherever he passed and some colleagues even stopped to request for photo ops with him.

Desmond, 36, does little to resist the attention. There is no doubt that he is charming, in fact, when he meets his fans, using words like “darling” he makes each of them believe that nothing else in the world matters.

When he visited one organisation in town, a young woman who shook his hand broke the news on her Facebook wall and some of her friends urged her not to wash her hand for the rest of the day.

But he seems to be used to that kind of attention and from all over. A fan commenting on an article on him poured her heart out: “Des, I would nickname you Diamond in the field of play. You’ve stirred me a lot with your acting.”

So what does he do when a girl screams at him?

“I scream back,” he joked as he settled down for the interview. He then asked for lip balm.

Make no mistake, ladies, Desmond is a man keen on looks. Clad in a crisp navy blue suit and a pocket square in place unbuttoned his coat before taking a seat. Slowly.

The man who has had key appearances in more than 200 films, TV shows and soap operas in his career unveils himself with every answer. His journey to fame began a little over a decade ago.

“About 12 years ago, I wanted to go to America to pursue my dreams, but when I got to the embassy, my visa request was declined,” he said.

He believes that he was denied a visa because he didn’t have any “ties” with the embassy and he did not give the officials any guarantee that he would return to Nigeria.

They were right.

“I wasn’t planning to return,” he said, chuckling.

Two years later, the actor went back to the consular and didn’t even have to queue, “because then I was a star.”

But before his star rose, before he had an exit plan, a friend of his encouraged him to start acting but Desmond had it rough at the start.

“I walked into many auditions and was disappointed. Once, a casting director I had gone to see opened the window and asked me to look outside to see the masses that had come to audition as well.

‘Do you see all these people?’ he asked, “they are here to audition and I don’t think you can beat them.’”

Then there was the other man who told him he could be a star... in about a week, or a month, or maybe sometime in the future – just not with him.

But Desmond kept on going back to try his luck. “I would go in, write my name down just like everybody else but the only difference was that I would go home and pray over the auditions and ask God for what I wanted.”

Dark angel

And so, it must have been a relief to eventually land a main role in the 2004 film, Missing Angel. In it, Desmond played a dark angel who gradually falls in love with a troubled young woman he was sent to manipulate.

“While we were shooting, it seemed like child’s play but it came out with a bang. That’s when my big break came,” Desmond told Lifestyle.

For a man who learnt on the job, his acting must have impressed some big shot in Nollywood.

“My pay doubled. In fact, it quadrupled from about 50,000 naira (Sh25,680) to close to 200,000 naira, (Sh102,800),” he said.

And the offers came in similar fashion.

Desmond is pretty up front about his religious convictions. Every so often he credits God for this far he’s come.

“I believe that I was called to be an actor and that’s the gift God has blessed me with.”

But sometimes the roles he got demanded a lesser degree of his Christianity. Desmond figures that he has been approached for far too many of compromising roles and sometimes, he admits, he compromises but it “hasn’t been easy... far from it.”

His supportive wife, Victoria Ima-Obong, has been there long before Desmond read his name on the credits.

“We were in school together and she knew me when I was still wearing shorts. The thing is she now refers to my career as my girlfriend.”

“If I do something she doesn’t like on TV, she tells me and we talk about it,” Desmond said.

Whenever Desmond’s ego gets in the way, he says his wife manages to bring him back to his senses simply by calling him by his middle name.

But Desmond is no fool. He knows that where there is light there’s heat and keeps things professional, even though his beautiful colleagues and fans make it a tall order.

In an interview with modernghana.com, Desmond admitted that women have previously offered money just to sleep with him. While others may find this flattering, he doesn’t.

“Acts like these are embarrassing to me. Whenever I perceive that I am about to be chased, I run. I run because I have an ambition, which I don’t want women to ruin for me.”

He says that he decided long ago that his colleagues and friends will remain just that. Resisting the temptation is all in the mind, he says.

“What you decide is key. I said I will not have an affair with any of the actors and, at the end of the day, I know I have to go back home.”

But, even a man standing this tall has had a moment that brought him to his knees.

He says his most humbling moment was in America where couples don’t want to have children “yet my wife and I had tried so hard to get a child but with no success.”

“I found myself really blaming God because I couldn’t understand why my wife and I had to try this hard,” he said.

But four years into their marriage, they got a breakthrough.

“When God decided to ‘embarrass me’, he gave me two. My wife didn’t even know she was expectant till she was five months pregnant. Now I have another set of twins,” he said with one of his disarming smiles.

Last year, the news of a second set of twins came while he was abroad.

“When my wife called to give me the news, I screamed, not out of joy but shock,” he said.

But it is a shame how he hardly finds time to spend with his children.

“Sometimes my kids ask why I have to leave so soon. What they don’t realise is that if Daddy doesn’t go there, they won’t have anything to eat.”

At times, it seems to him that it’s all work and no play. In fact, the man who spices up young women’s daytime entertainment menu calls his social life “extremely boring”. After all, between shooting 30 films annually, there isn’t much sand left in the hour glass.

But he is now cutting down on acting to pursue his production interests, one of the reasons for his visit to Nairobi.

“I’m trying to see how I can establish some form of bilateral relationship between Nollywood and Kenya’s film industry in terms of acting and technical know-how,” he said.

While in Kenya, besides seeing “madame wa Kenya” as he said on Churchill Live last Tuesday, Desmond has been meeting with the film industry players, laying the groundwork for training, marketing and distribution channels that could benefit both Kenya and Nigeria.

So what does he think of Kenya’s film industry?

“Kenya is a lovely country but there is an almost non-existent industry. The focus on high-budget movies does not benefit the population,” he said.

Piracy is no excuse, he said, because it is everywhere. Nollywood stars have had to rely on sales from the United Kingdom, America, Australia and Ghana before they can turn their eyes back to their backyard.

“The point is marketing. If Kenyan filmmakers could release films and distribute them all over at the same time then that would be a start,” he said.

Its no secret that a man in an industry as popular as his is well-to-do.

“Well, we can pay our bills and afford a few extra-curricular activities,” he offered, trying to remain modest.

In Nigeria, he said, it doesn’t take much to shoot a good film, but they have found a way to make Nollywood a consumable product. Before the government poured in some cash, the people believed in their own product.

Distribution network

While piracy is still an issue in Nigeria, having a strategic distribution network has allowed the public to appreciate the product.

And since a prophet is never acknowledged in his own home, Desmond says that the international response keeps them going.

Soon, however, Desmond figures he will be doing more than reciting lines. He is planning a career switch into politics when the curtain falls.

“I look up to a lot of people in the faith and in the government of Nigeria as well and, very soon, I want to go into politics because I feel called to be a leader,” he said.

And so his life’s script has as many twists and turns as those he takes to the screen.

As he walked back to a waiting vehicle right outside the Nation Centre, women whispered excitedly.

They had seen a star.